Fun fact: I’m not required to hand in lesson plans. This is actually fun because I don’t have to worry about it and any plans I make are for my own purposes. Also, I don’t have a teammate to work with on plans so everything I create and develop…is also on me. Last year, I did not have a curriculum. This year I do, and after 3 quarters of school, I have it down to a science. (The Science of Reading, some might say.)
Since hyper-organizing and checking things off my to-do list is how I cope with stress, I thought I’d share my week. This is what I did with 3rd graders for a week in March. Our school week is 4 1/2 days and I only teach them ELA and Social Studies because we are departmentalized. I have two classes, 75 minutes in the morning, and about 45 minutes in the afternoon. I also teach a 30 minute RTI block.
This is not all-encompassing but it’s most of it.
ELA last week was a new fluency page from Education to the Core, a new story in Wonders, a new spelling list, a new newsletter to send home, new vocabulary, some noun task card review….Monday is the hardest morning of the week. I also do a Syntax Slide as a warm-up.
I use McGraw-Hill Wonders for my reading instruction, but here’s some other ELA I sprinkle in:
Daily Syntax Slide from Education to the Core. That subscription is the best money I spent this year. They kids write all of this in their notebooks.
We started doing Maze passages twice a week. The single best way to improve fluency AND comprehension at the same time.
(I found mine for free on TPT. While I’m mentioning TPT, here’s my store. I haven’t put anything on there in years, but a few times a week, I make 3 cents off of a sale :)
Thursday is morphology passage day and the kids really like these for independent work. We also took our story test and I was impressed with their scores.
I incorporate Brainpop when I can (this was about Citizenship) to build background knowledge.
And I do a Kahoot for vocabulary most days. It takes about 10 minutes, from log in to log off.
We have RTI (Response to Intervention) time after lunch. I get a mixed group of 2nd and 3rd graders because they are sorted by ability. I’m reviewing what they’re gong to likely see on the standardized test this spring, so I’m trying to hit all the genres that aren’t everyday common for these kids. We did fables on Monday.
Myths on Tuesday.
And then did some comparison activities. I found these stories in a test-prep book in the cupboard. It’s very similar to what a 3rd grader would see on a standardized test.
Lastly, I had two goals this week in Social Studies: finish the Civil War Unit and finish Little House on the Prairie, the novel study I’ve had going since January.
We finished the Civil War Unit and I finished LHOTP with one class. The other class has two chapters left.
Neither class finished the movie because it’s a million minutes long so we’re just watching in small chunks each day.
Yes, I wrote this test during my prep period on Tuesday. Can you tell?
I haven’t graded them all yet, but there was no whining, tears, or gnashing of teeth while they were taking it, so I consider that a good sign. They do use their notes because using text evidence is a huge skill I try to cultivate. Kids will always have access to texts on standardized tests so they need to know how to go back and look up answers.
Anyway, that was the week. Tons of content and they made a lot of progress :) This is probably my second favorite group of kids I’ve ever had because they love learning so much.